Inmate injures guard

Wednesday

Jan 30, 2013 at 12:37 PMJan 30, 2013 at 12:43 PM

Cynthia Grau

A Pontiac Correctional Center correctional officer was injured after a scuffle with an inmate at approximately 1:45 p.m. Monday.The details of the attack are very sparse, but both Anders Lindall, spokesperson for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which is the union for correctional officers, and Marcelyn Love, spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Corrections, say that the officer was attacked by an inmate and sustained injuries to his or her face.“The officer suffered facial fractures including a broken nose and may require surgery,” Lindall stated.Lindall also said the attacker had recently been transferred to Pontiac from Menard Correctional Center.“Pontiac’s population of some 1,900 inmates exceeds its capacity,” he said. “AFSCME has expressed alarm in the strongest possible terms about the rising tensions and growing threats to safety in state prisons. Governor Quinn’s ill-advised prison closures are destabilizing the correctional system by reshuffling inmates statewide and making already overcrowded conditions worse. This incident underscores the stakes for employee safety that have been totally disregarded by Governor Quinn.”Love added that an IDOC investigation is under way as a result of the incident.“The department typically refers criminal charges on the offending inmate to the county state’s attorney in incidents such as these once the investigation is completed,” she said.The identities of the attacker, the injured officer or the details surrounding the incident have not been made public due to the active investigation.Coincidentally, State Representative Josh Harms (R-Watseka) took a tour of PCC earlier in the morning, arriving around 10 a.m. and leaving between 11 and 11:30 a.m.“It was my first time there and I didn’t know what to expect when I walked in,” Harms said. “It was a lot cleaner than I expected. It was a lot quieter than I expected. Everything was running very smoothly. I didn’t really know what to expect, though.” Harms said he was taken through the medical wing, the West House and the protective custody segregation unit.“I felt very secure the whole time. There are certain civil rights that have to be afforded to inmates, like they had them outside for rec time, and they would escort them in and out and they would go to commissary. There were inmates walking right past me. I’m very appreciative of those guards and what they go through. I’m glad they’re willing to do that,” Harms said.He also said that some of the overcrowding concerns were brought up during the tour.“We talked some about the double bunking because ideally, the way it was described to me, you’re not talking low risk inmates, you’re talking high risk inmates and you run into more problems when you start double bunking where in the past, it wasn’t double bunked,” he said.As for the attack, which happened only a few hours after he left, he said he didn’t see any indications of what was to come.“I just have very little information. I was told that it happened and that the inmate jumped the prison guard and just started hitting him. That’s all I know,” he said.Harms added that the overcrowding and transfer of supermax prisoners in from Tamms is always a concern of his.“This is my opinion and it’s nobody else’s and I didn’t get it from anybody at the prison. Tamms was effective for making inmates want to behave so they didn’t go to Tamms. When you close Tamms, there’s nowhere else for them to go when they need even more intense supervision. I’m not speaking for the prison system. I’m just speaking for myself and how I perceive it. Tamms worked as a deterrent for inmates to not have bad behavior,” he said.Overall, though, for his first trip to PCC, he says he was happy with what he saw. “I was very impressed with how it was run. The guards knew their jobs and they followed their protocol coming in and out of different units. It was run very well. What I’ve heard in the past that in the 90s it was not run like this and now from what I hear, the guards are pleased with the warden and everyone knows what they need to be doing to keep everyone safe most of the time,” he said.